STEVENSON RANCHERS MAKE PITCH TO JOIN CITY.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

STEVENSON RANCH - Stevenson Ranch Town Council members met with Santa Clarita city officials Thursday to discuss annexing their community's 3,300 homes into

city.

City staffers and Town Council members met after the Local Agency Formation Commission denied the city's application to expand its influence beyond the Golden State and the Antelope Valley freeways last month. The council told staffers to meet with residents west of the Golden State Freeway to pursue annexation into the city of Santa Clarita.

The Stevenson Ranch Town Council was one of the city's vocal supporters.

``The city is basically saying: You tell us what you want from us,'' said Lorrie Baldwin, Town Council president, about beginning the process of annexation.

But the Town Council doesn't have the funds to pay for the annexation process and is seeking the city's help. Depending on the size of the area, typical LAFCO fees for a residential annexation are $7,000 for the application and $500 to amend the sphere of influence, in addition to costs of maps and workshops.

During its hearings, LAFCO officials said they will not prevent a community from annexing into the city if there is majority support. LAFCO is an independent agency that oversees municipal boundary changes in the county. Town Council members said that public outreach measures in the past several years have consistently shown that the community supports annexation. For the city to support the annexation bid and to incur the expense, typically the community would have to collect 60 percent of residents' signatures in favor of cityhood. Since last year, the council has collected 300 signatures.

But the Town Council told City Manager George Caravalho and planners that they don't have the resources to collect the nearly 2,000 signatures needed for city support. Both parties agreed to explore other options to achieve the requirement, including conducting phone and mail surveys.

``We are going to start the educational process and have the public forum to get the pulse of the community,'' said Town Council member Keith Pritsker.

Both parties agreed that city staff members would attend the Town Council's October meeting to talk about annexation.

If the Town Council meets the city's requirements, the City Council must approve the application to LAFCO.

Another potential obstacle facing the Town Council is the Valencia Marketplace - which generates about $2 million a year in sales tax revenue for the county and was sold several years ago to an independent businessmen on the condition that he would resist annexation.

``We discussed that if there's sufficient sentiment among the residents of the community in support of annexation and the only thing standing in the way is the Marketplace, chances are the county will arrange a revenue-sharing agreement to satisfy the financial concerns of the county and the city,'' Pritsker said.

Jeff Stevenson, a representative of Stevenson Ranch's developer Lennar Communities, said he didn't have any comment about the Town Council taking steps toward annexation.